Flying High
by Dementor-of-the-Pen
Summary: In MapleClan, cats fight to become the next leader. In MapleClan, things rarely ever go smooth. In MapleClan, only one cat will brave the rushing winds. Only one cat at a time, one cat, will reach the high post. Amberwing hopes she's got what it takes. (Story adopted and beta-read from Stuffed Watermelon.) READ LATEST NOTE
1. Chapter 1

**Story adopted and beta-read from Stuffed Watermelon. Also, it's my first multi-chapter story, so I hope you guys'll enjoy it. I'm aiming to finish it in less than 2 months.**

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The Intro:

The story takes place in the land of four clans—PineClan, MapleClan, OakClan, and BirchClan. Each are named after a specific tree which most of its territory is covered with. MapleClan is the strongest of the four, and it's where Amberwing, the main character, comes from.

MapleClan's deputy is getting older. Many cats are competing to become the next deputy (then leader) of MapleClan. (There isn't much rush, though, since Cherrystar is still fresh.) Amberkit was born into this turmoil, and she seems to have special leadership skills. Her father wanted her to use her ambition, while her mother told her to hide it—or else she would become a target. And that was true, because the more Amberkit shined, the more other cats wanted to get rid of her, even when she's an apprentice. She outwitted her haters, becoming the warrior Amberwing. And that's when the story begins. This is only an outline, so there's probably gonna be a lot of stuff not mentioned above. I'll make it up as I go. Also, Amberwing will be referring to the quote, "Intelligence without ambition is like a bird without wings", because it's what her (deceased) father told her.

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The Prologue:

It was a cold and still night, the silence broken only by a monotone of snores, sounding from multiple dens etched barely visibly inside the shaded hollow. A light brown she-cat tiptoed to the middle of the MapleClan camp, her green eyes glowing eagerly as they swept over her surroundings.

"Nope, not there," she muttered after a few moments. Her soft voice was laden with disappointment. "And I really thought Cherrystar would be in her nest tonight, I guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow night to ask her about Brackenkit." She padded back into the warriors' den, a big bush overlapped with small brown thorns.

Little did she know, Cherrystar was actually perched on top of a tall maple tree, hanging delicately over an innocent looking rock-pile. The russet-colored MapleClan leader had watched the brown she-cat come and go.

With an air of exhaustion, Cherrystar climbed down from the tree, slowly picking her way through the darkness. As she was making her way down, she deliberately knocked a small branch into the medicine cat's den. It was the signal for conversation.

There were several quiet groans coming from a faint outline of two forked trees, and then a dark ginger tom padded over to where Cherrystar stood, waiting impatiently, at the camp's entrance.

After giving him a glare that clearly meant 'Be quiet!', Cherrystar flicked her tail at the tom and padded out into the deep forest. Her partner glanced around twice before walking rapidly behind her. They noted it was eerily silent, crowded inside the branches, but that was how things were always like at night. There were no nocturnal hunters, nor had there ever been.

The two cats finally came to a halt in front of a thick waterfall. Its waves reflected the moonlight, and its hum, which had gotten louder as they were closing in on it, echoed on the rocks piled around.

The orange medicine cat gingerly placed his paws forward until he had walked right into the side of the waterfall, absorbed by its powerful slashes. Cherrystar did not hesitate to follow him, and soon both cats had disappeared into the secret cave hidden behind.

..

Once they were tucked safety into the deepest part of the cave, Cherrystar turned to the ginger tom. Her eyes blazed with pleading. "Please, Honeyspring, I need your help, Briarstem told me I should consult with you once more. It's happened again, these cats are so blinded with their need for power. Just a moment ago—at this time of night, you hear?— Dewmask came to my den, just to ask me if she could mentor Brackenkit! This has happened with Beeface, too! The cats of this clan are too afraid to ask for an apprentice in broad daylight, as others might 'punish them for wanting to become deputy'!" She felt the words come tumbling out, her voice rising in frustration.

Honeyspring closed his eyes. "Cherrystar, you are MapleClan's leader, you must try to make the right decisions. With all these random omens turning up, I am plagued enough."

"Ah, yes, the omens. Are you so fed up with messages of StarClan that you cannot help me with the current things—with the important things?"

"Cherrystar. I beg you, hold your anger. Hear me out first. Last sun-rise, I visited the Moonpool."

"And...?" Cherrystar leaned forward, her attention captured.

Honeyspring sank to the ground, as if the memory was too much to hold. "StarClan were horrified with MapleClan's current predicament. Some wanted Furzepetal as leader. Some wanted Shadowtail. Others—" He shook his head sadly. "Even out ancestors are arguing. They are torn between their own separate cats, they send me omen after omen for who they choose. And our current deputy—Quailstorm—gets closer to retirement with each day that passes. How can we pick a single cat out of so many arguments and debates?"

Cherrystar's eyes widened. "Quailstorm told me that he'd stay as my deputy for one more year—he's been a good one so far, I'll tell you that—and then he'll be too old to carry out his special duties. If StarClan won't help us now, we'll have to make our own choice, whether they like it or not."

Honeyspring nodded numbly. "Yes, I suppose so. I advise you to make your pick quickly, or else this problem will get out of paw. Battles will break out, I have the feeling they eventually will."

His leader's face looked thoughtful. "True, that. Yet the thing is, I have the strangest feeling I should wait a bit longer... And the right cat will come to me, of its own accord."

One day later, Amberkit was born to Hollybird and Spidercreek.

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**MapleClan Allegiances (so far):**

Leader: Cherrystar - _reddish brown she-cat_

Deputy: Quailstorm -

Medicine Cat: Honeyspring - _ginger tom_

Warriors: 

Furzepetal -

Shadowtail -

Beeface -

Spidercreek -

Dewmask - _light brown she-cat with green eyes_

Queens:

Hollybird -

Elders:

Briarstem -

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Oooh, yeah, a prologue! If you think this is worth reading, please review!


	2. Chapter 2

**_ONE YEAR LATER_****_... _**

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My gaze wandered to the red sun that sank below the horizon, washing fire onto the trees and clouds scattered around it. Tonight was my silent vigil; I'd been made a warrior only a few hours ago. This being said, I was another step closer to reaching the post of MapleClan deputy; then MapleClan leader. Even after so long, Cherrystar's words still echoed soundlessly in my ears.

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_"I, Cherrystar, leader of MapleClan, call upon my warrior ancestors to look down on this apprentice. She has trained hard to understand the ways of your noble code, and I commend her to you as a warrior in her turn._

_"Amberpaw, do you promise to uphold the warrior code, and to protect and defend this clan, even at the cost of your life?"_

_"I do," I mewed. I stood up taller and looked straight into my leader's shining golden orbs, all too aware of the clan's piercing stares locked onto my quivering body._

_"Then by the powers of StarClan, I give you your warrior name. Amberpaw, from this moment you will be known as Amberwing. StarClan honors your cleverness and determination, and we welcome you as a full warrior of MapleClan."_

Cleverness and determination. Amber_wing. _Cleverness and determination. _Those phrases... They__ swirled around my head, like how anything did when it was related to something I wanted to forget._Cleverness and determination. Amberwing. Cleverness and determination. _I began to feel dizzy, and my hind legs thought they might just buckle._

My father...

_I was so wrapped up in my thoughts, I didn't realize Cherrystar was padding towards me, until she had laid her soft muzzle down on my head. Startled, I quickly gave her shoulder a hasty lick._

_"Amberwing! Amberwing!" The call came from only a few cats, Hollybird and Mallowfire yowling the loudest, probably because I was closer to them than the MapleClan's otherwise warrior body put together. My mother's and my best friend's heads were raised triumphantly up to the bright sun beating down on our necks._

_Most of the other MapleClan cats only sat there and stared at me through narrowed eyes. I guess shouldn't've been so surprised. I should've expected the cats who'd tried so hard to get rid of me wouldn't be glad I'd made it to the warrior status. So now they were probably plotting some other stupid ways to get me out of the bucket. But I was thankful about Hollybird and Mallowfire anyway. I turned my head towards them and smiled gratefully. They grinned back at me, and Mallowfire mouthed, '_Great' _at me_.

_Then I realized someone was missing. Someone that would have been standing right beside Hollybird, cheering his heart out... _No. I couldn't think of him now, my father's death would just bring more weight on me...

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With one eye I watched that beautiful horizon under the sun, which now was shaped like a half-moon. I carefully scanned every bush, every tree, every hiding place I knew. There would be no unexpected attacks on MapleClan today. My other eye I kept trained on my Clanmates' dens, especially the Warriors' one. A half-moon hovered delicately in the dark sky; you never knew what to expect at night. A cat of my own clan might decide to attack me; because for all I knew, they had the same common ambition as I had—to become the leader of MapleClan. And getting rid of the little blockage known as me would mean they had a better chance of becoming the next deputy, a better chance of succeeding Quailstorm and Cherrystar. Apparently, my leadership skills were well enough already...

Suddenly memories of my life bombed me on the head—was this a part of what you thought after you finally become a warrior?—and I was filled with pictures of everything—my father, my mother, my friends, my enemies... I knew I would never be able to explain every detail of it all, but to begin, where could I start? My father's voice sounded above the others.

"_Intelligence without ambition is like a bird without wings,_" he said to me when I was a kit. I had no idea where that'd come from at the time, but I guessed it meant that if you were smart, there was only one goal worth aiming for—leadership, or something of the sort, because leaders had to be smart, didn't they?

Me and my father had been watching two warriors—Redsplash and Voleclaw—arguing about who would get first pick out of the fresh-kill pile. "_You'd think they'd've learned not to bicker like apprentices by now," _Spidercreek remarked, twitching a whisker in amusement as Redsplash suddenly shouted, "_You're like the dumbest cat I've ever met! I feel like I'm arguing with a spoiled apprentice!"_. In my head, I'd silently and wholeheartedly agreed with him.

Present time, Redsplash and Voleclaw would've both just said, "Squirrel" at the same time, and whoever said it first would get to pick their prey first. But back then, arguments little as that did pop up, and to say the least, those times happened a lot.

_"Well, there's a decent cat, at least." _Spidercreek had used his tail to indicate Shadowtail. The dark gray tabby tom was waiting calmly for his prey as he sat beside Voleclaw, an elsewhere look—boredom, probably—playing on his face.

Too bad the decent cat died in the next moon.

In the few moments that followed, I'd let my gaze skip around the camp. Rainsplash, arguing with Dewmask by the warriors' den entrance... Cherrystar, padding out of her den with her head held high and her paws placed firmly... But what really caught my eye was Briarstem, at that time an old ginger-and-white she-cat, emerging slowly from the elders' den. Her mouth gaped open, and her eyes looked curiously around the main clearing. I guess my father must've trailed my gaze. Because the next thing anyone knew, we were chatting about how wise she was, how many cats—even Cherrystar, sometimes—came to her for wisdom and help, and how she had no ambition, so therefore was 'stuck in the elders den,' as Spidercreek put it. I wasn't that supportive of my father's logic back then, but still I listened to his points.

He advised me to hear her many stories and to take her advice; he said that it would help me reach a 'high point in MapleClan's rankings'. So I did. I found myself visiting her daily, hooked into all those old tales she so vividly described. Soon I looked up at the elder with a new-found fascinating kind of respect, and I think she began to look at me similarly. Many times I had to wait until one of the warriors finished consulting with her, but I didn't mind very much. I learned about LeopardClan, TigerClan, and LionClan... All those misdeeds and clever squirmings that squeezed themselves into history...

It was a lot to take, talking with her for whole mornings, maybe even some afternoons. Though I did have Mallowkit beside me, of course, sometimes it was still a tad boring. My father was strongly supportive of these 'educational teachings', as he called them, but my mother... Well, when she found out what I was supposedly doing (_"Amberkit, you're just making yourself a target!"_), she was mad at both my father and me.

"_Don't get involved with all the leadership arguments in this StarClan-forsaken clan,_" Hollybird had protested fiercely, her protective side rising from the water and shooting straight at me. "_If_ y_ou're aiming for the same goal as half the cats in this clan, and there's only one cat who's gonna get it, guess what'll happen? Cats will try to get rid of you, to give themselves a better chance at leadership. They'll try to murder you in your sleep, and nobody_ (funny choice of words) _wants that to happen. It's best if you just stay unnoticed inside MapleClan, at least until this riot of debates wanes away with the moon."_

But I knew she was just being the mother StarClan told every mother to be.

There were a few flaws in her so-called good plan. The first, never was I going to remain unnoticed inside MapleClan (or so I thought, at the time). I wanted to be leader, to stand out among the others... And I couldn't see how shying away from them would help me reach higher than the clan. My father respected my decision, and soon my mother would learn to also.

The second flaw, and the most fatal, was the argument didn't wane away anytime soon—it didn't even disappear an year later—and Quailstorm, our current deputy, could still stand taller than the clans' meeting hollow. Cats still competed, debates got bigger, everyone got more hateful. From outside, you would think our clan was a smooth stream. Inside, you would gaze open-mouthed at the complete chaos, the fish hacking each other around, the ripples working like crazy dogs. If she really thought we'd find a way to smooth out the waves, Mother couldn't have been more wrong.

And then... And then there was the death of my father; and then there was my conversation with Cherrystar.

Spidercreek died at the paws of a small, bright red monster. Those big creatures rarely ever killed warriors those days, but that didn't stop my father from getting caught in the headlights, only seconds after he shoved a frozen Thornstripe, who was Echopaw's—_Echopaw's_—father, off the Thunderpath.

I learned to forgive him.

Cherrystar spoke to me that evening about my father's death. I couldn't tell if it was out of sympathy or pity or just awkwardness, but I hoped it was out of sympathy. After we conversed about Spidercreek's death, after I reluctantly told her about that saying my father had shared with me and my mother so often, she told me, "Be brave, Amberpaw... And you keep that to heart, 'Intelligence without ambition is like a bird without wings', you might need it soon." I didn't need her big pity; I didn't need to be comforted like a little kit who missed his mother. But out of respect for our leader, I didn't say.

And then, at my warrior ceremony, Cherrystar had named me Amberwing. Amber_wing_._ She_ called me clever and determined. _Clever and determined_.

Those traits were all I needed to rise up to to Cherrystar's attention list, according to my father. I had been an kit when he told me, and I was confused. There were lots of good warriors in MapleClan already. Why would the leader wait until I was an apprentice, much less a warrior, to appoint her succeeder? Spidercreek explained how many of the warriors—many, if not all of them—were very, very determined to become clan leader one day. Maybe a bit too determined. "_But them, they aren't that clever, you see... and to become deputy, you need_ both _determination and cleverness_."

He was glad I understood that. I promised him never to forget... And Cherrystar, for her I'd brought up that subject again, and she'd given me a name of _wing _and a description of determination and cleverness. Maybe she thought I was the one with the most intelligence and ambition. That I might trace a way to fly to her high perch on the meeting maple.

I sure hoped so.

Once again, I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts, I didn't realize what was happening until it was too late. Because then, in a blur of confusion, two unusual things happened at once.

There was a feminine cry of "Amberwing, no!" and a cat—_Cherrystar,_ I thought—jumped down in front of me, onto the big, blurry shape of a lunging cat... There was the whispered cry of "BirchClan, attack!" and suddenly I could see millions of small shapes jumping onto the logs, the trees, the dens...

Why hadn't I noticed before? I was the guard of the camp; I was supposed to protect MapleClan from these kind of things, not give enemies the chance to ambush us! But before I could mentally scold myself and alert the clan, a huge force slammed into my head, knocking the world black and keeping that scream trapped inside my lungs.

**MapleClan Allegiances (so far):**

Leader: Cherrystar - _reddish brown she-cat_

Deputy: Quailstorm -

Medicine Cat: Honeyspring - _ginger tom_

Warriors:

Furzepetal -

Beeface -

Redsplash -

Voleclaw -

Rainfeather -

Thornstripe

Dewmask - _light brown she-cat with green eyes_

Hollybird

Mallowfire

Apprentices:

Echopaw (mentor unknown)

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**Okay, finally that's done. The next chapter won't be as boring.**

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**_ONE YEAR LATER_****_..._**

NOTHING EDITED, except for some of the notes. This whole thing was written more than a year ago and beta'd by Stuffed Watermelon. Sorry, so sorry I haven't been active at all since then. Do y'all even remember me? *tosses a cookie* Meh... but well. This thing is probably going to be edited, like a lot, and was definetely not a plea for attention XD.

Hello from the other side...

To tell you I'm sooorrry for everthing that I've done...

-Ciao, from Mento. Fo now.


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